Read Online
The Worthy Rival concept is a thing of extraordinary beauty.
Once the curtain comes up and you see it, it becomes a tool for life, Before that, it becomes a source of anxiety and angst and difficulty and challenge, But once you reframe it and see it for what it is It becomes fuel to your fire It first happened to me, I think, the first circumstance I remember where this would be applicable was when I was called down to the headteacher's office In my school (, I scudy state school, by the way) to be invited to be the head boy.
I knew that was what was happening, and it followed weeks and weeks of speculation and discussions in the corridor and people coming up to me and telling me that's what was going to happen. The current head boy kept telling me that he was just polishing the badge for me. I knew that I was to be called down.
I was captain of the Scottish basketball team, I've done really well at sport, I was doing OK at school, it was my time.
I was called down to the office with one of my best friends at the time, somebody smaller than me, not a basketball player. I didn't really register why they were there. They were a bit cleverer than me, actually, probably quite a lot cleverer than me and had had family go through the school that had done other things, but no matter, this was my time, and here it came.
It turned out it wasn't my time, it turned out it was his time. I was to be his deputy.
Hardly ever told that story, actually, but as I remember it, I was utterly crestfallen, and the way I feel in my chest when I tell it now, it was a huge, huge deal to me.
What happened, though, was that that person became a worthy rival, not a competitor, not an enemy, someone who I could try to win against,his is the beauty of the concept.
The other worthy rival who is extraordinary in my life is my brother Kevin. I remember some time ago my wife asking me,” When will it ever stop?” I think she means my incessant ambition to move forward. I told her never, because that's what it feels like.
One of the main reasons for that is that I grew up being ‘Kevin's little brother’, not Colin.
Everywhere I went in my hometown, that was Kev's little brother; everybody I met, everybody who talked to me. The problem was, I was a slightly smaller, less good-looking one (ugly, actually).
Regardless of what I did there, I would never be anything other than that, and so it's because of that that I'm here.
I fall back into the world where I have enemies or where I have people that I consider to be non-worthy adversaries all too often but more and more, I found myself having the ability of looking at someone who is in competition with me, or better than me, or smashing the life out of something that I'd like to do, and looking to see how I could learn from them.
It's OK to lose to your worthy rival; in fact, it's essential. All you need to do is dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and try to make yourself a little bit better again.
Blog Post Number - 4376